70 BULLETIN 102, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
toward that end. No better example can be brought forward than 
the following table recently published by a large packing house 
showing how by-products contribute to lowered cost : 1 
Average price paid for cattle, per steer $84. 45 
Average price received for meat 68. 97 
Average price received for by-products 24. 09 
Total received 93. 06 
Expenses and profit 9. 90 
As to their social value — their contribution tovvmrd human conserva- 
tion and welfare — modern civilization in the past few years has 
become utterly dependent upon the aggregate of by-product sub- 
stances, which have already entered practically every realm of 
activity. Nay, more than this, civilization at this very moment of 
writing rests upon the competence of toluol, an obscure by-product 
of coal and petroleum, scarcety heard of a few years ago. 
Applying these conceptions to petroleum, we observe that petro- 
leum refineries at present produce : 
Proportion- 
ate bulk. 
Proportion- 
ate value. 
Four main products. 
Per cent. 
About 80 
About 15 
About 5 
Per cent.. 
About 90 
About 10 
None. 
About 200 bv-products 
Waste I 
The petroleum refining activity is the largest and one of the most 
efficient chemically controlled industries in this country. Yet while 
the most competent branches of this activity have carried the pro- 
duction of the main products forward with effectiveness, they have 
not been able, alone, to draw more than a modicum of value from 
the by-product possibilities inherent in the resource. Aided by a 
constructive economic policy active in the direction of shaping a 
proportionated outlet for intermediate products and focusing a 
competent campaign of chemical research on the matter, the pe- 
troleum industry would be enabled to carry its by-product develop- 
ment much further, to the relief of the cost now so exclusively 
borne by gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, and lubricants. Petroleum 
and coal tar are the chief raw materials of synthetic organic chem- 
istry, and the values hidden in these two substances, as already 
so well known in the case of coal tar, can not be exaggerated in 
prospect . 2 
1 Swift & Co., 1018 Yearbook, p. 82. This expression, of course, is conservative. 
2 Apart from the matter of by-products, the automotive industry can assist in main- 
taining a balanced outlet for the main petroleum products by bending its technical de- 
velopments so as to fit the resource in the way of adapting its engines to handle a wider 
range of oils. 
